Live Masters blog: Angel Cabrera takes lead as competitors fade

(Update 3: With rain falling, par is looking like a very good score. Day and Snedeker have both posted recent bogeys, Day falling to 7-under and Snedeker 6-under, leaving the steady Cabrera alone at the top at 8-under. Meanwhile, bogeys at Nos. 5 and 7 have dropped Tiger to 2-under. Lee Westwood is making a nice move, going from 2-under to 4-under in his first seven holes to tie for fifth. John Huh has gone from 3-over to 3-under, his move highlighted by an eagle at No. 15.)

(Update 2: Action is heating up early among the leaders, with Jason Day rolling in a bunker shot for an eagle on No. 2 moments before Brandt Snedeker cans a lengthy birdie putt on No. 1. Not far ahead of them, 55-year-old Boca Raton resident Bernhard Langer is making a statement for the AARP crowd, rolling in birdie putts on each of the first three holes to get to 5-under, three shots off the lead. Tiger Woods has parred the first three holes, but the way things are going, he’s going to need a birdie run.)

(Update 1: A glance at local radar shows rain headed into the Augusta area in the next few hours. While the forecast calls for only light showers between now and 7 p.m., it appears the last few groups will play much of the final round in the rain. As for players on the course, Keegan Bradley is rebounding from his third-round 82 by going 3-under so far thanks to consecutive birdies at Nos. 14-16, and Phil Mickelson is 2-under on the day after starting at 8-over. Chinese 14-year-old Guan Tianlang is 3-over through 13.)

Can Tiger do it? From ESPN to the Golf Channel to the buzz around Augusta National, that was the question being asked as the final round of the 77th Masters tournament got underway Sunday morning.

Thanks in great part to the two-stroke penalty levied against him by the Rules Committee Saturday morning for an improper drop at the 15th hole Friday, Tiger Woods was at 3-under par, four strokes off the lead as he awaited his 2:10 p.m. tee time. As daunting as that difference is to make up, it’s moreso because of the number of players he has to pass _ six _ to earn his fifth green jacket.

Sundays are never easy scoring days at the Masters, and while Woods has had more success here than any player in the field, he’s held the lead going into Sunday in each of his four wins. His final-round scores on those four Sundays: 69, 68, 71, 71.

He’s made the cut in 17 of his 18 Masters appearances, missing in his first appearance as a pro in 1996 before winning in a runaway in 1997, when he set the record for the lowest score at 18-under that still stands.

Of those 17 final rounds, he’s broken 70 only six times, although three of those have come in the last four years.

While Tiger has been good this week, he hasn’t been great. He’s 13th in the field in driving, averaging 294 yards, 51st in fairways hit at 57 percent (24-of-42) and 30th in greens in regulation at 63 percent (34-of-54). What has saved him has been his putting; he’s needed only 84 putts over 54 holes, off his record pace at Doral earlier this year, where he had 100 in 72 holes, but that 1.57 average is considered excellent.

When it comes right down to it, the difference for Woods between leading and just contending is one hole, that fateful 15th that he played on Friday. Sitting in the middle of the fairway perhaps 90 yards from the green, if that 60-degree wedge was an inch to the right or left, he had a great chance at birdie. Instead, it hit the flagstick, rolled into the water and began the chain of events that, counting the penalty he was assessed the next morning, ultimately gave him a triple-bogey 8. That four-shot difference is exactly the gap he still needs to make up today.

So can he do it? With the old Tiger, the pre-2008 Tiger who seemed capable of anything, it seemed a sure bet. Even for the remade Tiger, the one who has won six events the past two years and never gives up a lead, the mountain doesn’t seem too high to climb. But this is a tall order, and a challenge that will have as much to do with the performances of guys like co-leaders Brandt Snedeker and Angel Cabrera _ and even third-place Adam Scott, one shot back _ as it will with what score Woods can put up.

The odds are certainly against him. If he somehow perserveres, another chapter in a remarkable story will be written.